KENNETH POBO

Kenneth Pobo on Steve Flickers:

  "The poem originally began more about an image of light in darkness and not just with one person but with many.  It surprised me by becoming more of a meditation on being and non-being.  Steve is a character I’ve been working on for some years, a gay man in a straight world.  The poem, then, is poised between the binaries of light/darkness, being/non-being, and gay/straight."

STEVE FLICKERS

At the concert darkness

covers us, a heavy coat.

We flick lighters,

make a tender glow. 

We’ll try to find our way home,

headaches, high, the roads,

tough crossword puzzles. 

Something always right

on the tongue’s tip

keeps slipping away, the puzzle

not quite finished.

When I die forget candles,

lighters, or matches,

not even songs.  Dump me

around some roses.  Maybe

I’ll improve your spring,

the least I can do--

and the most.


Kenneth Pobo has a new book forthcoming from Blue Light Press called Bend Of Quiet.  His work appears in: Weber: The Contemporary West, Red Cedar Review, Mudfish, Cordite, and elsewhere.